The fight in Velika Hoča in 1905 and its consequences

Abstract

The Serbian Chetnik Organization established its network in the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Serbia during 1903 1904. Following the failed attempt in the autumn of 1904 to reach an agreement with the Internal Macedonian-Odrin Revolutionary Organization on coordinated action in Macedonia, and in anticipation of open conflict, the Serbian Chetnik Organization intensified its activities. These primarily included the arming of villages that had declared themselves Serbian and the dispatching of armed detachments into the Vilayet of Manastir.

In the spring of 1905, two attempts to transfer detachments and weapons from the Serbian border and the Kumanovo region toward the Vardar River were unsuccessful. The first failed after the defeat of a Serbian company near the village of Tabanovce, while the second, despite the successful engagement of several Serbian detachments against Ottoman troops near the village of Čelopeka, was likewise unable to achieve its objective. The increased concentration of Ottoman military forces along the border with Serbia, particularly in the Kumanovo area, necessitated a change of strategy. Consequently, a detachment of seven Chetniks, under the command of Savatije Milošević and Lazar Kujundžić, attempted to take an alternative route through the ethnically mixed Serbian-Albanian areas of the Vilayet of Kosovo, with the intention of reaching the vicinity of Tetovo and subsequently advancing toward Kičevo in the Vilayet of Manastir.

The detachment was discovered in the village of Velika Hoča, where it was compelled to engage in combat. In the ensuing clash, the company was completely annihilated. The consequences of this event were profound: the Serbian population of Orahovac, the native town of Duke Lazar Kujundžić, was subjected to violent reprisals by local Albanian groups both immediately after the encounter and in the years that followed. These hostilities placed the Serbian community under constant pressure and nearly resulted in the complete exodus of Serbs from Orahovac.